Big Brothers Big Sisters

The most awful experience ever… After being in the program for over 2 years, my son was finally matched with someone. The worst nightmare! The guy was a liar and for whatever reason, could not commit to his obligation to my son. He would text and say he would come and do something with my son and not followup. During a whole summer, he only took my son 3 times and 2 of those times were things that I had to suggest for him to do. The last time I heard from this guy, he had planned something for he and my son to do, but my son was in summer camp so I told him that he could pick him up, but because they were swimming that day, he wouldn’t be back until 4:00pm. This idiot says, oh I guess I could push my trip back for a wedding he had to go to out of town. He never really had any intention to take him anywhere. Just wanted it to appear that he was going to do something. The case worker was even worse, she thought that she could manipulate and cover for him instead of getting rid of him from the start, they boot my son out of the program with no explanation why or anything.

Did you know that for every match that Big Brothers /​Big Sisters of Middle TN makes it costs them more money ongoing? They’re one of the few non-​profits where the more people that get involved the more it costs to run.
Those dollars go to make sure the kids are not trapped in some nightmare situation, do background checks on potential matches, personal interviews, crisis intervention, matching, events, match specialists, etc… BBBS spends quite a bit of money for each successful matchup they have.
I’ve been in the program now entering my third year. In this time I’ve had (and still have) one little brother, and I’m now on my third of fourth match support specialist (one moved away, one because my little changed schools) and each one of them seems to take this as more than just a job.
If you’ve got a few bucks to spare and are looking for some place to invest in the future, I can’t promise that every dollar is going to the right place, but a decent enough percentage appears to be.
If you’ve got some time to commit and are looking to make a change in someone’s life, you might be interested in getting in their programs. Be aware it’s a commitment, you’re not guaranteed to be matched and sadly there are an abundance of Big Sisters who will not be matched as there are not a whole lot of little sisters and too many little brothers think big sisters are icky. Sadly it’s how the game goes. (Big Sisters can be matched with boys or girls, Big Brothers as far as I know are matched with boys only)
They have a couple of distinct options for mentoring, a community and a site-​based option. Site-​based is you come to a school and visit, Community is after school /​out in the world. I spent 2 years doing in-​school and now do both while my little is out of school.
It’s been a good experience for me as a BB. There are things I’d like to change about it for my particular situation, but in general I think they’re doing just about as good as they can for everyone.
So yeah, that’s my review — decent place to volunteer time or donate some money.